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The BSens continue to tread water in the second half of the season, losing to the very beatable Laval and then winning against one of the best teams in the AHL. I did like the trade for Ville Pokka, albeit that it’s too late and the Sens have a long track record of abandoning assets like him in the off-season.

Belleville 2, Laval 3boxscore
Shots: 27-27
PP: 0-6
PK: 3-3
Scoring chances: 9
Key saves: 5
The Goals
1. Rodewald tips in Murray’s shot (the play started with great work by Chlapik)
2. Laval SH – 2-on-1 keeps and scores (the odd-man rush because none of the forwards held back to cover Chlapik’s point)
3. Laval – Dunn stops skating and his check is wide open to bang in a centering pass
4. Laval SH – 3-on-2 scores from the slot
5. Gagne steals the puck and scores from in close

Notables: Sexton hits the post with an empty net (first); Sexton misses the net from the slot (first); great cross-ice backhand pass by Chlapik (first);Ciampini boarded (second; no call–crowd was gasping, but he kept playing); 2-on-1 no shot (second; McCormick can’t make a pass or shoot); Paul with a great chance off a rebound but can’t put it on net (second; a difficult play in this case); Chlapik hits the post (third); Chlapik set-up a couple of the scoring chances above with great passes.

After the first short-handed goal against Kleinendorst flipped which PP unit was first and second for the next few reps, which accomplished nothing (the second–now first–unit generated zero offense and the first–now second–gave up another shorty anyway). It’s a good example of Kleinendorst’s reactionary defense-first approach even when the team needs a goal.

Belleville 3 Toronto 1boxscore
Shots: 25-26
PP: 0-3
PK: 3-3
Scoring chances: 10
Key saves: 3
The Goals
1. Randell scores on a nice feed to the slot from Englund
2. Sexton tips in Chlapik’s shot
3. Toronto – Rodewald lost in outer space as a wide open Marlie scores on a one-timer from the top of the circle
4. O’Brien scores on the empty-net

Notable plays: Gagne gets run over (first; he was fine); Englund misses an empty-net (second); O’B falls on a 2-on-1 (second).

AHL Live crashed for about three and a half minutes of the first period (I missed zero BSen shots or special teams play). This is the second game in a row in Belleville where there has been a streaming issue (albeit a shorter one than the last game against Toronto where half a period was lost). I’m not sure what the issue is, but at least it didn’t drag on as long.

Taylor had very little to do this game and in general has benefited from much better defensive play the last few games (the BSens used to give up a ton of shots, but have only given up over thirty once in the last fifteen).

As for the lineup, the newly acquired Ville Pokka played and did not disappoint. He shoots the puck a lot and can move the puck, which are two qualities lacking on the Sens blueline (“gritty” players like Englund, Sieloff, and Burgdoerfer have struggled all season to assist both the transition and possession). Other changes included Blunden returning from suspension (he wasn’t missed), White coming back from Ottawa (a welcome return), with McCormick going back up. It’s worth pointing out how well the team plays in the absence of Max McCormick: 3-0-0, +5 in goal differential, and a sparkling 87.5% on the PK. As I’ve said ad nauseum for years: McCormick is a decent third-line AHL forward who can do spot duty on the second line–that is it. When I see comments like this it’s either from old schoolers who think it’s twenty years ago or younger fans who let isolated plays and confirmation bias sway them. The numbers–and performance–doesn’t lie.

The BSens rounded out their week with a loss to the Comets. Because the BSen broadcast was out of sync with the video I wound up listening to Utica’s play-by-play guy, who was so laconic he reminded me of comedian Steven Wright (probably an obscure reference these days–my memory of him is cemented by his role in Reservoir Dogs). The Tweeted BSens lineup was a bit off as Blunden was a late scratch (Erkamps was inserted as a 7th D, but barely played).

Notable Plays: McCormick misses the net from the slot (first); Harpur hits the post (first); Reinhart misses an empty net on the powerplay (first); Burgdoerfer with a pass to no one (second); Utica goal called off for goaltender interference (second); Randell blocks a shot with his wrist (second).

This was only the 10th game of the season where the BSens actually outshot their opponent (their record when doing so is now 5-5-0). Danny Taylor came back to earth (he wasn’t terrible, but four goals on twenty-four shots isn’t lighting the world on fire).

There were various Kleinendorstian oddities in the game–Tyler Randell (he of the 1 real goal in 40 games) was inserted on the PP for some reason (the last time this happened was December 28th, but his last time as part of the regular rotation was a two-game experiment back in early December). Naturally this did nothing to help the powerplay (the team has scored zero PP goals with Randell on the ice), which also included McCormick (whose limited effectiveness on the powerplay I’ve gone over before–those numbers have only gotten worse, incidentally). Speaking of special teams, I’m not clear on why Harpur has been relegated to the second unit in favour of Murray–Harpur has much better numbers on the powerplay.

Another twosome of games to comment on. The up and down season of Marcus Hogberg continues, as in an unexpected start (Taylor was ill) he earned Belleville’s first shutout of the season, and in the following game got shelled before getting pulled (not all the goals were his fault, but he needs to be better). This struggle with consistency took him over a month to sort out in the ECHL while being a regular starter–how long it takes in the AHL remains to be seen, but no one should fear he’s another bust like Matt O’Connor (whose AHL struggles are now ECHL struggles–the NCAA FA hasn’t had a shutout at either level, incidentally)–it’s far too early to judge. McCormick missed this game because he was in Ottawa and the team missed him not at all.

Belleville 2, Rochester 0boxscore
Shots: 26-33
PP: 0-3 (5-on-3)
PK: 0-1
Scoring chances: 8
Key saves: 9
The Goals
1. Flanagan scores short side as the Amerks goaltender goes down early and is slightly off the post
2. Reinhart empty-netter as Blunden flips the puck ahead and he wins the foot race

Notable plays: Gagne misses the net on a great chance from just above the hashmarks (first); great feed by Chlapik, but Paul shoots it wide (first); Sexton misses the net on a 3-on-2 (first); O’Brien shoots the puck over the net on a 3-on-1 (second); Chlapik hits the post (second); a weird penalty shot call for Rochester, but they hit the post (second); 2-on-1 but Paul can’t complete the pass (third); two of the scoring chances were off great feeds from Chlapik.

Belleville 4, Toronto 7

Unfortunately both McCormick and Blunden were returned to the team for this game (Jordan Murray also returned from injury–inexplicably he replaced the highly productive Ben Harpur on the first powerplay unit and helped it not at all).

I missed the first 10:34 of the game because it was not broadcast due to technical difficulties (I missed the first three goals of the game and 10 total shots on goal–3 by Belleville–but no penalties). This problem seems to have been in the arena because as of this writing I haven’t seen highlights posted. The BSens had a season high in scoring chances (one more than their 3-2 win over Rochester a month ago), but were sloppy defensively, didn’t get a great night from Hogberg, and were guilty (again!) of taking selfish and pointless penalties in the third period (more about that below). Tyler Randell, incidentally, scored his first goal against a goalie this season (39 games in)–another quality FA signing from Randy Lee.

boxscore
Shots: 25-30
PP: 0-3
PK: 3-4 (5 min major)
Scoring chances: 16
Key saves: 6/3 (keeping in mind I missed seven shots on Hogberg in the first)
The Goals
1. Toronto – point shot (I only have the BSens Twitter feed to describe it)
2. Toronto – tap-in or one-timer via a centering pass (as above)
3. Reinhart (no description provided)
4. Sexton bangs in Chlapik’s pass
5. Toronto – both Englund and Gagne are guilty of puck-watching as a rebound is banged in by an uncontested Marlie in the slot
6. Paul bangs in a rebound
7. Toronto – one-timer from the top of the circle
8. Toronto – one-timer from the slot
9. Toronto – Hogberg beat five-hole as he slides from post-to-post
10. Toronto PP – Taylor beat by a clean shot from the top of the circle
11. Randell scores on a nice feed from Reinhart

Notable plays: two great scoring chances were via passes from Chlapik (first); Burgdoerfer falls awkwardly and struggles to get off the ice, but returned (first);
Blunden shoots it over an empty net (second); Paul misses the net with an open side (second); Chlapik accidentally runs over a referee (second; he was fine); Sieloff misses an empty net (second); Blunden targets a Marlies’ head and is rightfully kicked out of the game (third; the org should have no tolerance for that, but we’ll just hear excuses from them); Gagne gets drilled (third; clean hit and he seemed fine); Flanagan hits the post (third).

I mentioned the dumb penalties and this is a season-long trend by the BSens–the players guilty of taking them are all “leaders”–Blunden, McCormick, O’Brien, etc. These are undisciplined, selfish plays and there have been no consequences from the coaching staff whatsoever. This approach is something we saw from Luke Richardson as well (vets could do whatever they wanted). There’s no excuse for this–there ought to be even less tolerance for veterans. It’s worth pointing out that in games where the BSens have given up two or few powerplays they are 5-1 on the season (giving up only 13 goals, which is far below their norm)–the arithmetic is pretty simple.

Back in late December I took a look at the BSens powerplay and with less than thirty games left in the season it’s time to take a look at the team’s PK. The raw percentage for the team is terrible (77.2%, tied for 28th in the league, but giving up the second most goals with 49–only Laval is worse). There’s nothing unique about the BSens strategy on the PK (a fairly passive box), although as the season has gone on they’ve often chosen to use just two or three defensemen on the rotation when trusted players are injured.

In the absence of useful stats from the AHL what we can do is look at deployment (in this case a shift count)–who is being used and to what level of success? Given injuries and call-ups there’s been significant variety so there’s a lot to break down. First, let’s look at usage broken down by shifts-per-game (minimum 20 shifts and averaging 1 per game):Forwards
Sexton 4.4
McCormick 3.97Kelly 3.93
Blunden 3.77
O’Brien 3.71
Flanagan 3.0
White 2.84
Perron 2.02
Paul 1.93
Randell 1.86
Rodewald 1.18

Small sample size is something to keep in mind, as Sexton has only played in 10 games, Flanagan 14, Harpur 15, etc. There’s a clear preference on defense (four primaries with a regular sprinkling of Jaros) and at forward (four–five with the departed Kelly–getting the heaviest usage).

So that’s frequency, but what about effectiveness? Here’s how they stack up based on goals against per shift:Forwards
O’Brien, White, Paul, Sexton 0.06
Blunden, Flanagan 0.07
Randell 0.08
Rodewald 0.11
McCormick, Kelly, Perron 0.12

For the most part with the blueliners’ success follows usage, but at forward Kleinendorst’s favouritism impacts what he does, as Kelly and McCormick play more than their effectiveness justifies. Looking at this you’d say the top four PK forwards should be Sexton, O’Brien, Paul, and Flanagan (White is in the NHL, but if not, he bumps Flanagan), with the top-four D remaining as is with some Erkamps experimentation to see if his ability is sustainable. How does this hold up to actual pairings? We can break down who helps or hinders by seeing results depending on partners, so let’s take a look at the most frequent combinations (the dates in brackets aren’t necessarily absolute timeframes–they can also indicate the heaviest usage; the numbers are shifts vs goals against):

While some of this bewildering variety is due to injury and experimentation, it’s far above what any coach should want in terms of stability and consistency. Kleinendorst has feels a compulsive need to play aging vets like Kelly beyond the bounds of reason. It’s also difficult to understand the decision to either get away from or stick with particular combinations. Conclusions: White, O’Brien, and (so far) Sexton make their partners better, while McCormick tends to be a drag on his partner and Perron is someone who reflects his partner (for good or ill). Paul, who has mostly played well in this role, was largely removed from the PK in mid-November for no apparent reason. In White’s absence and looking at the data, what we should be seeing is Sexton, O’Brien, Paul, and Flanagan getting the bulk of the time (we already know Paul-O’Brien works from the above).

A few things become apparent looking at it this way: Sieloff makes everyone better, with Harpur helping to a lesser degree; Burgdoerfer and Murray are drags on whoever they play with, while Englund’s impact seems more of a neutral factor–he can’t make up for his partner, but he doesn’t hurt either. Jaros is heavily effected by who he plays with (good with Lajoie and Sieloff, struggles elsewhere). Looking at what’s been tried I’d put Sieloff back with Englund and keep Burgdoerfer with Harpur until Jaros is healthy (and why not mix in some Erkamps so you can find out if the guy is actually a decent penalty killer or not?).

A few other player-specific comments:
-White, who has easily been the team’s best penalty killer, only started getting top rotation in January–Kleinendorst is so reluctant to trust younger players that even with a first-rounder like that he needed two months of watching before pulling the trigger
-Rodewald’s usage fell off at the same time as Paul’s, but his numbers aren’t nearly as good suggesting this was a smart coaching decision
-Randell received a huge spike in usage in December (60% of his deployment for the year) which has since dropped off to his more typical levels
-A third of Erkamps’ shifts come from a single game in October (4-2 loss to Syracuse) and over half from October in general–so buyer beware, but that’s not a reason to ram Murray into the PK (which was what Kleinendorst switched too)

Another pair of games are in the books so here are my thoughts (incidentally, my PK piece is almost done–all the leg work is completed, I just need to wrap it up). They were games of contrast, as the BSens looked competent against the struggling Devils, but were outclassed by the speedy and aggressive Sound Tigers (wtf is a sound tiger anyway?).

Belleville 3, Binghamton 2 (OT)boxscore
Shots: 31-38
PP: 1-3
PK: 4-5
Scoring chances: 9
The Goals
1. Binghamton – low wrist shot from the point is tipped in
2. PP – Paul nice tip in front
3. Binghamton PP – rebound banged in (Blunden is too slow to get there for coverage)
4. Erkamps floats one in through a screen
Werek scored the only goal in the shootout (as the fourth shooter)

It was another solid effort from Danny Taylor, who seems to be back to his expected form (sitting out nine games either allowed him to get healthy or get his game in order–hey Randy Lee–move the guy while you can!). Sexton looked good in his return to the lineup, although we still saw too much Blunden and Randell remains dressed (always a failing). Sieloff’s return to the lineup also helped; ECHLer Corrin may not have played a shift in the game (by the time I started looking he wasn’t playing).

Notable plays: Sexton hit the crossbar (second); Taylor bails out Burgdoerfer (second); Rodewald misses the net on a 2-on-1 (nice pass by Chlapik; second–thus this Tweet); Gagne scores on a tip, but it’s waived off (goalie interference; second); Rodewald hurt via a crosscheck in front of the net (second; he would miss the next game); Sieloff misses the net in the slot (second); Taylor bails out Englund who got turned into a pylon (second); Chlapik misses the net from the high slot (third); Harpur passes to the wrong team (OT).

Taylor was solid in net, but there was no need to play him in back-to-back games (what’s the point of having three other goaltenders if you aren’t going to play them?). Kleinendorst may be feeling the heat to get the team into the playoffs, but Taylor hasn’t shown any ability to win in this scenario so it smacks of desperation.

Bridgeport showed great speed and pressure, which was fun to watch (don’t let the close shot clock fool you, this game was not close). I will say the camera set-up for their arena is terrible–it’s so far back it made it really hard to see the jersey numbers; the Bridgeport play-by-play guy said what no one is saying in Belleville: the lack of discipline by team leaders is a huge problem (both Blunden and McCormick were guilty of taking selfish, stupid penalties). Once again I’m not sure how much or if Corrin played.

Almost no notable plays: Blunden erases a potential powerplay by taking a penalty on the delayed call (second); Gagne with a great deke through traffic that’s stymied by the goaltender; O’Brien misses the net on a 2-on-1 with Chlapik; McCormick takes a dumb penalty in the third (a pointless crosscheck off a faceoff).

Filip Chlapik’s return has been a blessing for the underperforming Nick Paul and the team’s powerplay, but the BSens are 1-4-1 and despite being in an awful division show no signs of the kind of run they’d need to make it to the playoffs (barring the hockey gods sending Thomas Chabot back).

Another month is in the books in yet another failed season for the Sens AHL affiliate (the architect pictured above), so it’s time to take a look at who did well and who did not.

The team compiled a middling 5-6-1 record (better than December’s 3-8-1), anchored around a a three-game winning streak and trailing off with four straight losses. Their limp scoring from December carried on unabated (2.08 vs 2.16), although they did cut down their goals against (3.58 vs 4.33). The team fired a similar number of shots, but gave up even more than the previous month (-91 differential vs -74 in December), meaning the change in goals against is a reflection of goaltending rather than improved team defense. On special teams the powerplay improved slightly (15.7%), although it scored fewer goals (6 vs 8); the penalty kill continued to be terrible (74.5% vs 75%), despite giving up one less goal (13 vs 14).

The Roster

Ben Sexton and Patrick Sieloff missed the entire month with injury (Sieloff has been out since late December, while Sexton hasn’t played since November 4th). Thomas Chabot is gone forever playing out the string in Ottawa; Andrew Hammond missed all but one game this month on recall in Colorado. Filip Chlapik, Colin White, and Ben Harpur spent significant chunks of the month in Ottawa.

Cody Donaghey remains banished to the ECHL (32-2-3-5 for the season), despite a desperate need on defense. Vincent Dunn also seems to be gone permanently (14-7-1-8), with the more useful Daniel Ciampini (14-3-10-13) playing just one game in Belleville. Chris Driedger, who was given only one start this month, wasn’t sent to Brampton for playing time.

The Chris Kelly experiment recurred, as he signed a new PTO coming off winning the Spengler Cup. His second chance kept him in shape prior to his Olympic appearance, but he again failed to deliver. Kleinendorst, unlike the first round of Kelly, inexplicably put him on scoring lines most of the time (which was a disaster).

A few players are going through profound slumps:
–Perron has no points in his last six and hasn’t scored in fifteen (admittedly with minimal PP time and mostly playing on the fourth line)
–Rodewald has no points in his last eight and hasn’t scored in fourteen (this hasn’t impacted his ice time, although he has been yanked off the PP); since signing his ELC he’s tanked hard (27-2-2-4), echoing his hot/cold performance last season (when he was on an AHL-deal)
–Paul, prior to scoring in the team’s last game, had gone ten games without a point and has just four since November 3rd (21-3-1-4)–definitely time for the team to move him elsewhere
–Gagne went through a terrible streak (12-0-0-0) going back into late December, but has pulled out of it of late (5-3-1-4)

DiDomenico has also fallen off a cliff in terms of scoring, albeit he spent most of the month banished to the third or fourth line (because reasons). Werek, like DiDomenico, is producing less, but received limited ice time.

The primary positives are: Jaros, whose production and defensive play have improved; Harpur (offensively, albeit a small sample size); and White (offensively and defensively).

Special Teams

The raw numbers are above, but I’ll quickly go through usage vs effectiveness (minimum five games played, averaging a shift per game).

The main takeaway from this is what a tank Blunden is on the PP (despite extensive usage) and how org darling McCormick continues to be a non-factor (he played less this month, but still saw regular action). Games played keeps Chlapik off this list, while who knows what Perron needs to do to get consistent chances here.

Half the most successful forwards aren’t on the most frequent list, as McCormick and Blunden were burned the most on the PK; on the blueline Burgdoerfer is the torpedo for his partner–dragging Englund down with him. White’s improvement on the PK since the start of the season is startling (in the last two months he’s only been on the ice for just two–two!–goals against (through 19 games). Jaros has also improved tremendously, as he started off as one of the worst PK defenseman (statistically at least). Incidentally, since Jaros’ injury Kleinendorst has varied between using just one pair of blueliners for the entire PK or rotating with three.

I’m behind on my game breakdowns and so I’ll break format to sum things up as efficiently as possible.

Belleville 1 Manitoba 4BoxscoreShots: 24-29
PP: 0-2
PK: 3-4
Scoring chances: 3
The Goals
1. Manitoba – Flanagan stripped of the puck and Taylor is beaten five-hole
2. Manitoba PP – Taylor beat on a clean wrist-shot from the high slot
3. Manitoba – Taylor gives up a fat rebound that gets bounced in behind him
4. Manitoba – Gagne is lazy on the backcheck and the third man on the rush beats Taylor
5. SH McCormick deflects in O’Brien’s pass on a 2-on-1

Danny Taylor returned to form (in a bad way) and the BSens didn’t put up much of a fight in their loss to the Moose (season low for scoring chances). The lines were ridiculous, with Chris Kelly the first line center (again!), Tyler Randell dressed for no particular reason, and two ECHL call-ups were on the blueline (as they were for the next two games). This was the kind of game that inspires Tweets like this.

Not many notable plays: O’Brien misses the empty-net on a wrap-around (first); Gagne can’t complete a pass on a 2-on-1 (first).

Belleville 2 Syracuse 5Boxscore
Shots: 24-36
PP: 1-4
PK: 6-6
Scoring chances: 7
The Goals
1. Syracuse – on a delayed penalty call the puck is tipped in
2. Syracuse – Hogberg beat low with a wrist shot unopposed in the slot
3. Syracuse – Paul turns it over, Burgdoerfer can’t handle the loose puck despite no pressure and no one takes the open man
4. PP Burgdoerfer splits the D and scores on a weak backhand through the five-hole
5. Syracuse – tipped in front during a 4-on-4
6. Burgdoerfer’s shot from the point goes in (looked like it was tipped)
7. Syracuse – BSens pull the goalie early and Gagne is stripped of the puck

Marcus Hogberg got another start and while he made some mistakes he made 31 saves and the team in front of him was defensively awful (I had him making 13 key saves–13!). Kelly was gone at this point, but there was still confusion with the lines as Reinhart and Blunden played far more than they should and DiDomenico and Perron were buried on the fourth line.

Notable plays: BSens lose a 1-on-3 in front of their net, but the Crunch miss the net (first); Paul misses the net all alone in front (first); puck squeaks through Hogberg but he bats it out of the way before it can be put in (first); Flanagan turned into a pylon, but Hogberg bails him out (first); McCormick gives up a 2-on-1 (first); Crunch pull their goalie with 3 seconds left for an offensive faceoff (first); BSens no shot on a 2-on-1 (O’Brien with the pass; second); Paul misses the net in the slot (second); Werek was hurt by a shot from his own team (hit his knee; stays in the game; second); McCormick takes a penalty one-second into a powerplay (third); Hogberg saves a goal late (this was video reviewed; third).

A better game out of Taylor (36 saves), although he wasn’t thrown to the wolves the same way Hogberg was in the previous game. The team in front of him was pretty bad defensively, but a little better offensively (some of that can be attributed to slightly more intelligible lines, albeit Randell was once more in the line-up for no reason).

Notable plays: Harpur falls awkwardly into the boards and is hurt (first); Syracuse scores (first), but it’s waived off due to a high stick; Blunden tries to go one-on-one and comedy results (third).

The team is now on a four-game losing streak in which they’ve been badly outshot in three of the four games. On the plus side Filip Chlapik is back with the team which is a boon to their offensive potential.

I have thoughts about the month of January and Chris Kelly to share and I still owe you all my PK breakdown–it’s all coming in the near future.